The Warrior Within

I have just come back from 11 days of programs where I had the opportunity to paricipate in classes that have changed my perspective on the essesnce of the way we live our lives. I was passionate about receiving the information and am excited to share it with the Lanna MMA community.

Martial arts, has provided me with a career and a way of life for many years, as a matter fact December 2nd, 2015 marks the 10th anniversarry of Lanna Mixed Martial Arts. Throughout the years of owning a school it has become evident to me that the industry has done a great job of providing students with 2 of the 3 points of the triangle of Body, Mind and Spirit. The part that I feel has fallen by the wayside is the element of spirit. The question that many have asked me is how do we get that element back? How does one become more spiritual? Isn’t spirituality religion?

Over the next the few paragraphs I hope to provide some insight with regards to some of these questions and hope that by the end you will have 20 more to ask.

Last year at our annual Pot Luck Dinner and School Meeting I opened up the evening with a question, the question was what qualities does a modern day warrior have? What does a modern day warrior need in order to be a warrior? Most of the students responded with answers like discipline, fearlessness, dedication etc. The one answer that never came out was that a warrior knows him/herself. A warrior knows who they are; a warrior knows what’s in his/her heart. Their objective can change of what they are trying to do but inside their heart they know themselves. I was once told that a master is not recognized by how much he/she knows but by how many masters he/she creates. My life’s work is to create these masters and provide people with tools that have been given to me through, study, initiations and handing down, tools that will help people in becoming the grandest versions of themselves.

The challenge for me now is to bridge the gap between the martial arts world and the spirit world. Most people live their lives going through the motions and become people that someone else told them to become. They spend their lives pleasing or fitting into a role that someone else feels is best for them, when the truth is that it is only you that knows what is best for you. The mind becomes polluted as we go through this physical existence it’s the heart that stays pure. The heart will never steer you in the wrong direction.

The question remains how do we do this? How can we discern what’s heart and what’s mind? All of this takes time and work, work on you, which for a majority of us is the most difficult thing in the world. I find this fascinating because it is so much easier to change others than it is ourselves. I have come to understand through experience that these answers come in time. In order to understand ourselves better we need to ask ourselves questions, but the right questions. In Kabbalah class we were asked to complete a journal in which we had to answer 5 questions; Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? And what is my purpose? Another component is to spend time alone with yourself, spending time in meditation remembering who you are. Thirdly, a great way to really know yourself well is to be in service to others. Whenever you are feeling low in spirit do something for someone else and watch how your energy changes.

Spirituality has nothing to do with religion and has everything to do with knowing yourself so that we can change the world. A world where there is no more war and no more starving children. We can achieve this and it is possible but we must look inside ourselves first and follow our hearts. We all have been given special gifts and talents and need to use them for the purpose of the light. Becoming more spiritual has everything to do with knowing yourself and being in service to others. As martial artists it important to practice, drill and train techniques that are used for combat, but just as King Salomon did he trained his warriors as healers and his healers as warriors. That means that we have to train but we also have to heal. We have to heal ourselves and once we are better we must go and help others.

I want to make Lanna MMA a place where you can train your body, mind and spirit, a place where you can be a true warrior. A place where a warrior understands the techniques involved in combat and the tools/modalities to heal oneself and others. So share this with the world and look for the warrior that is inside each and every one of you.